Deployment

Docker Compose (Recommended)

The simplest way to deploy Complaintr is with Docker Compose:

# Clone the repository
git clone <repo-url> && cd complaintr

# Configure environment
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your production values

# Start all services
docker compose up --build -d

This starts three services:

db: PostgreSQL 17 Alpine on port 5432
web: Next.js app on port 3000
telegram-bot: Telegram bot for notifications and complaint submissions

Environment Variables for Production

Set these in your .env file or as environment variables:

Variable	Production Value
`DATABASE_URL`	PostgreSQL connection (use the `db` service hostname)
`BETTER_AUTH_SECRET`	Random 64-char string generated with `openssl rand -hex 32`
`BETTER_AUTH_URL`	Your production URL (e.g., `https://complaintr.example.com`)
`GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID`	Google OAuth client ID (create in Google Cloud Console)
`GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET`	Google OAuth client secret
`ADMIN_EMAILS`	Comma-separated list of admin email addresses
`TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN`	Bot token from @BotFather (optional, for Telegram features)

Google OAuth Configuration

Go to Google Cloud Console
Create an OAuth 2.0 Client ID
Add authorized redirect URIs:
- https://your-domain.com/api/auth/callback/google
Copy the Client ID and Secret to your .env

Manual Deployment

Prerequisites

Bun 1.3.4+
PostgreSQL 17
Node.js (for some build tools)

Build

bun install
bun run build

The web app builds to apps/web/.next/standalone/.

Run

# Start PostgreSQL
docker compose up db -d

# Push database schema
bun run db:push

# Start the web app
cd apps/web && bun run start

Reverse Proxy (Nginx)

Example Nginx configuration for production:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name complaintr.example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }
}

SSL (Let's Encrypt)

Use Certbot with Nginx:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d complaintr.example.com

Health Checks

The web app includes a health check endpoint:

curl http://localhost:3000/api/health

The Docker Compose configuration uses this for container health checks.

Database Backups

# Backup
pg_dump postgresql://complaintr:complaintr@localhost:5432/complaintr > backup.sql

# Restore
psql postgresql://complaintr:complaintr@localhost:5432/complaintr < backup.sql

Monitoring

Logs

Web app: stdout (Next.js server logs)
Telegram bot: stderr (console.error for operational logs)
Database: PostgreSQL logs within the Docker container

Analytics

Complaintr does not include built-in analytics. Consider adding:

Plausible or Umami for privacy-friendly page analytics
Sentry for error tracking
Grafana + Prometheus for infrastructure monitoring

Scaling Considerations

For high-traffic deployments:

Database: Use a managed PostgreSQL service (Supabase, Neon, AWS RDS)
Web app: Run multiple instances behind a load balancer
Sessions: Better Auth stores sessions in PostgreSQL, which scales with your database
Rate limiting: Currently PostgreSQL-based. For large scale, consider Redis for rate limit storage
File storage: Not applicable (Complaintr does not handle user file uploads)

Deployment

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